In the art of telecommunications, the great majority of telephone companies are equipped with, operate and maintain coin-operated pay phone systems that include central switching stations or boards and a multiplicity of coin-operated pay phone units strategically located throughout assigned service areas and that are connected with the central switching boards by pairs of telephone lines.
Pay phone systems distinguish from ordinary or common telephone systems in that the pay phone units thereof are equipped with coin mechanisms to receive, handle and retain or return coinage that is deposited therein by the users thereof.
In the great majority of pay phone systems, operation of those systems, including management of the coinage that is handled by the pay phone units is affected by a multiplicity of special electric operating signals and/or currents that are conducted between the pay phone units and their related central switching boards. Though the pay phone units are equipped with coin mechanisms into which users deposit coins to attain desired usage of those units, the coin mechanisms do not alone control use of the pay phone units but are, themselves, monitored and their operation is controlled by special switching devices and operators at the central switching boards that receive special signals generated by pay phone units and that direct necessary operating signals back to those units.
The majority of pay phone systems are separate from their telephone company's regular telephone systems that include private telephone units, and connection with and between those systems is made through and by the same or a similar interconnection and/or networking that is utilized to connect the central switching boards of different telephone systems that service different service areas.
While pay phone systems of the general character referred to above have long been in use and have provided excellent service to the public, they have proven to be notably less than satisfactory as regards the telephone company's ability to effectively manage them. The principal shortcoming found to exist in most of today's pay phone systems resides in the fact that the pay phone units include no suitable and effective means by which usage of those units and the coinage that is collected thereby is recorded or otherwise made readily available. As a result of the foregoing, it is extremely easy for those telephone employees whose job it is to service and collect the coins deposited in pay phone units to regularly and systematically steal a portion of the coinage they are engaged to collect in behalf of their employers. Such stealing of coinage by those employees, hereinafter called Collectors, will hereinafter be referred to as "Skimming."
In the case of many telephone companies, skimming by collectors has become so much of a problem that informal company policies have been established as to how much coinage collectors might safely skim for themselves each day.
In connection with the above, substantially standardized, difficult or impossible to contradict false excuses are used by collectors to explain away apparent shortages of coinage.
While ongoing records of pay phone calls are often made at the central switching boards of pay phone systems, for use by the central offices of the telephone companies to determine how much coinage should be collected from the pay phone units, those records are ineffective to determine how much coinage might have been stolen by vandals; by thieves with skeleton or pay keys to the coin boxes of the pay phone units; how much coinage the pay phone units might have been "shorted" by the use of various illicit tone generating or cheating devices; by malfunctioning of the systems; or, by collector skimming.
In one notable effort to eliminate skimming, most pay phone units now include coin box compartments or vaults with key-lock access doors and in which sealed coin boxes, in which coinage is deposited, are removably engaged. Where such structures are provided, the job of collectors, when servicing each pay phone, is to remove the previously installed sealed coin box from the coin box compartment or vault and to reinstall a newly sealed, empty, coin box in its place. The removed, sealed coin box is delivered by the collector to a coin counting office or station where its seal is broken and its contents counted under well supervised conditions. The provision and use of such coin boxes has proven to be little more than a minor inconvenience to those who are intent upon skimming. For example, the use of such coin boxes is rendered ineffective by collectors who purposefully fail to leave coin boxes in the pay phone units they service for short periods of time and collect and pocket that coinage that is loosely collected in the coin box compartments of the pay phone units upon delayed reinstallation of coin boxes therein. Following such a procedure, an unscrupulous collector can, during his lunch hour, skim off well over $100 from as few as ten closely related, frequently used pay phones without detection or proof of any wrongdoing.
The accumulated economic losses experienced by telephone companies as a result of skimming practiced by their employed collectors is a primary cause for the ever increasing cost for pay phone service exacted from the public.
As a result of the foregoing, in the recent past, what are referred to as "Smart" pay phones have been introduced and put into use in various pay phone systems. Smart pay phones are extremely costly and complicated computerized units that require costly modification of the central switching boards with which they are related. Smart pay phone units perform a multiplicity of functions that are not performed by regular pay phone units (now sometimes called "Dumb" units), including the monitoring, counting and recording of all cash transactions handled by each unit.
While smart pay phones provide many advantages not provided by "dumb" or common pay phone units, their adoption and use presents many serious problems. First, smart pay phone units manufactured in accordance with today's standards are not as strong, durable and trouble-free as are old or dumb pay phone units. Second, smart pay phone units are many times more costly to make or purchase, install and maintain than are standard pay phone units. Third, the special skills that are required to install, maintain and service smart pay phone units are not compatible with the skills required and exercised by those who are now qualified to install, maintain and service standard pay phone units. Fourth, smart pay phone units are, in fact, more complicated to use than are standard pay phone units and, as a result, are less user friendly than are standard pay phone units; that, as a result of long usage and familiarity, are user friendly. Fifth, with few exceptions, the initial capital investment or cost of the great majority of standard pay phone systems in use today have been paid for and the potential useful life expectancy thereof can be extended for a great many years. Accordingly, abandonment by telephone companies, of standard, paid-for, common pay phone systems and the adoption and use of more costly, yet to be paid for, smart pay phone systems cannot be economically justified.
It has been determined that the above referred to smart pay phone units and/or systems offer and do much more than is needed or desired by the telephone companies and by the public. Much of that which distinguishes smart pay phone units from common pay phone units is often said to be merely "gimmicky" or cosmetic in nature.
The single and most desired function offered by the new, fully computerized smart pay phone units resides in the fact that they accurately count and make available a record of all coinage deposited in and collected by those units and are therefore such that those substantial economic losses that are now experienced as a result of skimming and the like can be eliminated or notably reduced. No other feature offered by the new smart pay phone units is of such economic importance as to merit serious consideration.